


benefits of a casual hookup

by Blownwish



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Bathroom Sex, College AU, Depression, Hand Jobs, M/M, Marijuana Use, Sucking off, ass eating, hot dogging, royed, sex in a convertible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 02:25:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14462982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blownwish/pseuds/Blownwish
Summary: The universe is just a fifteen billion year old explosion where nothing lasts, but that’s okay. Just hold on tight to the ones you love and enjoy the time you have with them.This is what Ed learned to do when he lost his virginity to Roy Mustang.





	benefits of a casual hookup

**Author's Note:**

  * For [butbythegrace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/butbythegrace/gifts).



> Beta’d by the amazing [Annabeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/annabeth/pseuds/annabeth)
> 
> And sorry, I wasn’t a science major.

Ever since spring semester started that dark-haired guy has been eye fucking Ed. He leans up against the old oak tree in worn fuck me jeans and a tight T-shirt to show off his body, and smiles whenever Ed catches sight of him.

Ed tries to box up this exchange of looks in terms of pheromones and unconscious sexual cues; molecules doing an odd bump and grind. But the thrill he feels when this man watches him walk to class isn’t something Ed can ignore. His heart explodes and his face burns up and he wants to run away and stay all at once.

The guy is there today, same as usual, under the oak tree. The Cockrell building’s steel and glass reflect sunshine like a spotlight. God, Ed almost skipped Chem Engineering today just to avoid this moment. Not because he doesn’t want to see this guy. No, it’s because this might be the day that guy ignores him.

It could be.

He looks up when Ed passes the tree. He looks Ed in the eye, he opens his mouth as if he’s got something to say, then he looks away and says nothing. The universe is constantly exploding; chemicals in his brain collide. But this isn’t extraordinary, it’s what his body responds to. So Ed keeps walking.

He’s had sex with that guy, Roy Mustang, already and what’s past is past.

++

Al was so excited when he told Ed he was going into the Air Force Academy that he was yelling into the phone. Ed had to stop in the middle of a campus parking lot on his way to lab. All he could think about was all the necessary steps toward that goal, like becoming a pilot, like going to war.

“I didn’t want to make you upset because, you know. That was _our_ dream before, you know.”

Ed jabbed an orange parking pylon with his boot. “Listen, that’s not why.” Ed closes his eyes. “It’s the military, Al. You know there’s a war. You know what you’ll have to do.”

“Maybe not,” he said after a long pause. “I might not fly combat.”

God, Al was such a dreamer sometimes! He could just imagine Al walking home from Lee High School, checking the mail and finding that letter. He was probably tearing it open before he walked in the door. Pinako was probably making a roast to celebrate, too. All the while neither of them stopping to think what Al would have to do once he graduated. Ed kicked the pylon over.

“Promise you don’t hate me, brother?”

Ed stopped. Never! He could never hate Al. “I will always love you.” Always.

++

Ed fucked Roy Mustang last weekend at Lan’s Never Ending House Party. Ed would’ve stayed home with his medical marijuana and his laptop but Winry had insisted on making him go. “All you do with your free time is study or get high and jerk off to porn. You’re like this sad little hermit crab.”

He had to set some ground rules when she parked on Lan’s street, behind a Red Camarillo and a long, long line of much shittier student shitrides like that old boxy Civic and that Seleca detailed in corny paisleys. “I’m not sharing my weed. It’s a fucking prescription!” He waved his Rx bottle in her face. Yes, he brought the whole thing, because _no_ , he wasn’t going to jail if Lan’s stupid party finally got busted.

She grabbed it, read it and smirked. “Rudy De La Garza? Is that what they call you now, shortstop?”

“I’ll show you a shortstop.” Ed jumped out of her Galaxy, a piece of ancient history Winry resurrected from the dead, and kept bouncing down the sidewalk and up the steps of Lan’s rented house. There were loud voices and loud music and Ed would’ve taken the keys out of Winry’s hand and gone home if the door didn’t open and Ling wasn’t yanking them inside.

Now Ling wasn’t exactly Lan’s boyfriend but he was definitely her pain in the ass because he was always around there, freeloading. “You got anything green, Elric?”

“Hell no.” Ed made a beeline through a bunch of assholes he didn’t know for the bathroom. His leg had been killing him all day and he’d had his last Advil five hours ago. Unfortunately there was someone in there and someone waiting ahead of him.

It was the dark-haired guy, the one Ed saw before every Chem Engineering class. God, he was wearing another T-shirt that molded his pecs and these soft jeans that lovingly cupped his ass and crotch and hugged his thighs and —

He kept staring at Ed, suddenly making Ed feel like his Lee High Calculus Club shirt and sweats were stripper gear. “I know you.” Oh god, his voice ...

Ed had to get a grip. It was just chemistry. “No, you don’t.”

“Yeah, I see you every Monday and Wednesday morning. You go to the engineering building.” His smile shouldn’t have been legal, it was basically face porn. _Why the fuck was he there and what the fuck was taking the person in the bathroom so long?_ “You sure do frown a lot. It’s kinda cute.”

Ed was not _cute_. Kittens and bunnies were cute. “So what’s my name, since you know me?” Shit, he was actually flirting. God, he sounded so stupid.

“Ed? Asked around.” He braced his arm against the wall and leaned in close. Too close. “I’m Roy Mustang.”

He had a porn name, of course. Shit — Ed could feel a trickle of sweat drip down his spine. “What are you? Some kinda stalker?” The idea of this guy asking who he was, of this guy knowing his name made Ed imagine Roy stalking his Instagram and jerking off to his pictures. God, that should have freaked him out, but it was turning him on and making him even stupider.

The door opened just as Roy was about to say more crazy shit. A blond girl came out of the bathroom leaving a million Kleenexes with smudged makeup all over the sink.

“You wanna go ahead?” Roy nodded at the doorway while he winked at the girl.

There was something about watching that stupidly, _stupidly_ hot guy turn his attention from Ed to that girl that just set something inside off. “I was just gonna smoke some weed.” So of course Ed said something really stupid, because for all his so-called intelligence he was an idiot at the mercy of his biochemistry. “You want some or not?”

Roy bit his lip. “You don’t mind smoking with an old man?”

“Look, don’t make me change my mind.” Ed blamed testosterone and adrenaline when he grabbed Roy by the shirt and dragged him inside. He pressed Roy up against the door the second he was inside. “You wanna?”

“Smoke pot?”

Ed yanked Roy’s head down. “Actually, I don’t share.”

Roy’s eyes were so deep and dark Ed thought he was going to drown in them. “Even better since I like paying my way. Wanna make a trade?”

“What’re you offering?” Ed was pulling his shirt up and _man those abs!_ There was also a red scar — Ed wondered how he got it. He wanted to touch it.

Roy took Ed’s prosthetic hand and put it on his fly. “I can trade this.” God, it was getting hard underneath Ed’s hand, too. And his breath was so hot on his neck. Oh god. Oh god, god, god. How many times did Ed look for dark-haired daddy-types on Grindr just to get this fucker out of his head? How many times did he jerk off to Roy’s facebook pictures after all the daddies turned him down? How many nights did he waste aching, dreaming, _wanting_ what this guy had been offering for months that dragged on like forever, like the pathetic lonely gimp he was.

Ed rubbed Roy’s cock. “Touch me, too.” Roy grabbed Ed’s ass and pulled him in close. Then he moved his mouth over Ed’s jaw. His cheek.

Oh.

“Hey,” Ed pulled back.

“What?”

He could feel Roy’s lips brush against his when Roy spoke. “You can kiss me but my dick is here.” He put Roy’s hand on his cock and thrusted into it. Yeah, he wanted Roy to touch him. He wanted to touch Roy. He wanted to watch him come and know he actually made this ridiculously hot guy come. “Jerk me off?”

“Are you kidding? You’ve been driving me crazy all semester and you wanna just jerk off? I can do better.” He tugged at Ed’s ponytail. “So much better.”

“What? You gonna suck me off?” Ed’s eyeroll was interrupted when Roy turned him around, pulled his sweatpants down and bent him over the sink. Oh, fuck! “Seriously?” Ed was pushed down when he tried to move, and he panicked. “I’m not into getting fucked up the ass. No way.”

“You said I could kiss you.” Ed could feel Roy’s breath on his skin as Roy pulled down his boxers. Then could feel Roy’s lips. And then his teeth. And then he spread Ed’s ass cheeks. And then — and then —

 _Oh_.

His tongue was wet and warm and it was there, right there. Ed stared at a Kleenex covered in frosted pink kisses. Ed’s cock, he was stroking Ed’s cock too, and _oh._ Ed had no idea he could feel this much, this quickly, all at once.

Roy pushed his tongue against him. Pushed it into him. Stroked him faster. Primed him, pushed him closer and closer and Ed thought he was about to explode when —

“Not gonna put it in, I promise.”

Ed watched his dark head come up in the mirror as he kissed his tailbone, pulled Ed’s shirt up, then worked his way up Ed’s spine until he was pressing Ed down with all that delicious weight and kissing his neck. “Promise I won’t, baby.”

Baby? _Oh, oh fuck._. Ed actually sobbed. He called him baby. And he sobbed some more when Roy straightened up and gently touched the scars on his back.

Roy put his cock between Ed’s ass cheeks, and when he thrust, when his cock slid over Ed’s hole, Ed arched his back and sobbed again. “Want doesn’t even begin to cover how you make me feel, to know that?” He moaned when Ed grabbed his hand to make Roy stroke him off some more. “Yeah, you know what I mean, don’t you? You’re hungry for it, aren’t you, baby? I see you every day looking at me with those big hungry eyes. And I’m going to give it to you.”

“Oh fuck yes!”

He couldn’t look away as Roy looked right back at him in the mirror. As Roy took his other hand and pushed his fingers in Ed’s mouth. “Take it!”

Ed wanted to remember the way Roy bit his lip and the way his cheeks turned red. And how he closed his eyes, how he opened his mouth and gasped when he came on Ed’s back.

And he didn’t stop.

He turned Ed around. He touched Ed’s lips with his thumb as he fell to his knees and sucked him. His mouth was so warm and so wet and his moans were more like purrs that reverberated through Ed, coaxing him closer and closer and closer and then it was like a ball rolling into a socket when —

His knees buckled as everything exploded but Roy held him up, milking every drop out of him until Ed was sobbing to a god that wasn’t there as he pulled at Roy’s hair and _came_.

Roy let him slip down to the floor when it was over and smiled. “You liked?” Stupidly, so stupidly, Ed nodded because he was so doped up. Roy was, too. They just sat there as the afterglow rolled over them in soft warm waves. Roy hummed and said, “So how about that pot?”

He could barely make his prosthetic fingers work when he rolled the joint. Roy had a fancy zippo and somehow they were shotgunning hits into each other’s mouths as time slowed in that capsule of a bathroom.

“What’s your major?” Ed had to laugh when Roy asked. “No, really. I wanna know. Engineering, right? You go into the engineering building. What kind?”

“Aerospace Engineering.” He was sitting on the sink with his shorts up and sweats down. Somehow Roy had managed to get trapped between his sweats as he stood between Ed’s legs. “You’re looking at a future rocket scientist. What about you?”

Roy held a long hit, tilted Ed’s head at what might’ve been a fifteen degree angle and blew it into his mouth. There was something so warm and wet about Roy, he made a hit feel like steam in Ed’s lungs. “Polisci. Got tired of following authority after I got out of the Air Force and in the mood to question it a little more.”

He took a hit off the joint and held it before Roy got his. Ed dipped his tongue in Roy’s mouth, then Roy sucked the smoke out of Ed’s lungs. “What’d you do in the Air Force?”

His eyes narrowed. “Flew F22s through the gates of hell.”

Oh.

Ed thought about Al. “I know someone who’s been accepted into the Academy. Any advice?”

“Don’t.” Roy had the decency to turn away when he coughed. He shook his head when Ed patted his back. “I’m okay.” Then he put the joint down, which was fine. Ed didn’t like burning his lips on roaches. “Whatever they think is there, it’s not. It’s the Air _Force_ , not the Air _Save_.”

Ed thought about Roy’s scars. Then he did more than think. He lifted Roy’s shirt. “Was this from Afghanistan?” He saw this glazed look in Roy’s eyes and he knew the answer was a painful yes. Ed offered him something in return, pain for pain. “I wanted to become a pilot back when I was a kid so I could become an astronaut. But that was before my accident.”

Roy rubbed the wrist of Ed’s prosthetic arm. And the knee of his prosthetic leg. Ed was waiting for him to say the usual, to say he was sorry. He didn’t. He just kissed him. It was nothing, just Roy’s lips brushing against his. But it was nicer than an apology for something that was entirely Ed’s fault.

Shit, he didn’t want to think about that now.

“You and me got knocked around a little and found ourselves here. It’s not so bad.” Roy grinned like he wanted to be there.

Ed fantasized as they left the bathroom that they might become friends, even fuck buddies. Roy put his arm around him as they walked together down the hallway. “You okay?” Ed nodded. It was probably obvious that they’d fucked around and he didn’t really care. It was normal human behavior and for once Ed was being normal instead of some angry gimp. “Okay.” He squeezed his shoulder as they entered the living room and it felt good to have someone standing there with him again.

Like he used to feel with Al.

Winry made a beeline for them and gave Ed her hysterical smile. “Hey…!”

“Goodbye, Winry.”

Those were the words that meant so many other things, like: _Take me out of this place_. And Roy did. They walked out without a word and Roy unlocked his car. No surprise, it was the Camaro.

Ed looked up. There it was, Ursa Major. He always thought of Al when he saw that one. It was the first constellation he could pick out of the sky. Al was probably at their campsite down at the Guadalupe River, with their telescope set up in the clearing. “Big Dipper.” He didn’t mean to say it out loud.

“Hm?”

Ed shook his head. “Nothing.” He didn’t know when he would be out there again with Al. Maybe this summer before Al left for Colorado Springs? Jesus, _Colorado Springs_. Ed thought Al would be here with him and Winry next year.

“Who’re you thinking about, baby?”

Ed snortd. “My brother. He’s the one going in the Air Force Academy next fall.”

“Tell me where home is and I’ll drop you off.” Roy typed in the address. Roy put the top down at a stop sign and the stars were back. “You envy that he’s going instead of you? Because I can tell you, military life is nothing to envy.”

“No, it’s not that.” He watched the Big Dipper and Little Dipper turn at a near ninety degree angle. “I want him with me, but he’s hellbent on this astronaut dream we had as kids, so I have to support him.”

He turned to Ed after he stopped the Camaro in the apartment parking lot. “You miss him a lot?”

Ed nodded. He didn’t want to say any more because he felt so exposed. Roy took a deep breath and nodded, too. “Yeah, I know that feeling.”

He was saying something else, something Ed could almost be sense when Roy gave him some sad, lopsided smile. 

They sat a long time just looking at the stars. “Tonight was my first time,” Ed said when he turned and found Roy looking back at him.

“You were beautiful, just in case you wanted to know.” Roy was a shadow, and so was Ed. No one would’ve been able to see Roy lean in and kiss Ed’s cheek. Roy caught a strand of Ed’s pony tail and twirled it around his fingers. “You were a virgin?”

Ed nodded.

“Tell the other person next time?”

They laughed but deep down Ed knew there would be an _other person_ who wasn’t this guy and a _next time_ without him. He looked up at the stars. Some of them didn’t even exist anymore and all that was left of them was their light.

“Look, I’m just really tired and I got lab tomorrow.” Everyone had to say goodbye, so might as well.

“Can I have your number?” he asked as Ed got out of the Camaro.

Ed just waved.

He could feel Roy’s eyes as he walked up the stairwell and went into his apartment. He stood in the living room for a while staring at the door like some doped up idiot. When Roy didn’t come Ed checked through the blinds. The red Camaro was gone.

++

Al had called him he next day. “Hey! Winry just told me you left with some mystery man last night?”

He was drinking ice coffee from a red solo cup as he watched another tequila sunrise over Austin. He knew Al was watching it, too. San Antonio only felt like a moment away instead of an hour. “Just a casual thing. Hey! How are _you_ , slacker? You gonna pull valedictorian or what?”

“Maybe.” Probably. Al could play low key all he wanted, but Ed knew he was going to pull it off. “It doesn’t really matter.” Like hell it didn’t. If Ed made valedictorian last year then Al was going to be hellbent on the same. “Hey, so since when do you do casual hookups?”

“Since I don’t have time to date.”

“But you never dated. This guy must’ve been special.”

Everyone probably though he was special. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Al sighed. “Sometimes I wish Pinako never rented that apartment for you guys. You should be living with new people in the dorms.”

He spat out his coffee when a fly landed in the cup. “Hey, I met people.”

“I meet people. Winry meets people. You just peripherally noticed them. Tell me about this exception to your rule.”

“Just some older fuckboy. You’d probably go gay for him. He’s ex Air Force.”

“Shut up. Did you get his number?”

Ed tossed the coffee in the soil of Winry’s potted ivy. “No. I don’t have free time.”

“Man, I feel kinda weird about this whole Air Force thing, to be honest.”

“Don’t, Al!” Ed dropped the cup on the card table Winry’d pulled up from the dumpster. He plopped down on the white plastic lawn chair. The sun was behind a cloud and Ed thought about that scar on Roy’s gut.

“Look, I’m sorry —“

“I love you.” He didn’t know what else to say, because he couldn’t say: _I don’t want to see a red scar on your belly or a tombstone with your name on it or for you to have to kill someone to keep it from happening_.

But Al knew what to say. “Maybe I can come by this weekend? You built that rocket, yet?”

++

Ed was grateful he and Al were living with Granny Pinako and Winry after he came home from the hospital. He just wasn’t good at showing it. He would get in huge fights with Winry and kick over the kitchen table. He would punch holes in the wall. He screamed at Pinako all the time because he hated her dumb rules. They made no sense. Why couldn’t he get a chemistry set again? _Did she really think he was going to do that again?_

He _was_ grateful. She didn’t have to become his foster mother; he and Al could’ve just gotten placed somewhere, probably separately. The social worker said something about a special home for Ed. So, no — he loved her for taking them in. She lived in a tiny house near the train tracks on Craigmont. Their house was on the other side of the train tracks and they had to walk by the lot every time they walked to elementary school. Every time. Sometimes Al would look at Ed as they passed it. Ed always flinched when he tried to keep eye contact. He took mom away from them. It was all his fault.

He knew.

One dewey October morning in Ed’s fifth grade year Winry ran ahead of them and Ed held his breath as he and Al walked past the place where their house used to be. The scorched cement foundation was replaced with a red brick house. It used to smell faintly burnt around there. Sometimes it still smelled like fire. Sometimes Ed thought about her body burning in the spot where her bedroom used to be. She could’ve been knocked out or killed before she burned, because there was a support beam directly overhead. But if she missed it. If it pinned her and she was alive then she felt the fire —

Al’s hand touched Ed’s elbow. “I should’ve stopped you.” No - he couldn’t say that! He had enough misery. Ed couldn’t let him have the guilt, too.

“It’s my fault!” Ed hugged his baby brother for the longest time. “You were just a little kid. You didn’t do anything wrong,” he told him after the bell rang down the street at Olmos Elementary.

Al sobbed and threw a rock at the window of the new house, then ran. Ed couldn’t catch up with him, his knee stump sock wasn’t able to keep him from getting sore spots if he ran a lot. “Al! You jerk! It’s not your fault!”

Ed never punched the wall again. He didn’t knock over tables or yell about how he wanted a chemistry set. He didn’t want Al to be like that.

++

So funny things happen when it’s close to midnight and Ed is high and all the science and math in the world can’t push the horror out of his head. _His brother is going into the military._ The universe is an uncaring place and it doesn’t have human comfort in mind. It has no mind. _His brother is going to be shot at._ It is just a part of one massive chain reaction, a fifteen billion year old explosion. _His brother could die_.

He has tried Grindr again. He’s been rejected again; there was this one guy but he didn’t respond. And somehow this was okay. He was expecting — no, _depending_ on that rejection. He jerks off to some porn, porn will never let him down, and he’s about to roll another joint when Roy Mustang crosses his mind.

He’s probably busy banging somebody else right now. Definitely not thinking about Ed. Somehow Ed finds himself Googling his name.

He’s got a Facebook.

Okay, so it’s not stalking if it’s publicly posted. Ed is going to blame the buzz, even though it’s an indica. Fuck, the dude has a lot of pictures of himself at the university. A lot of liberal activism and political posts that Ed doesn’t give two shits about. And then there’s these older posts from last year.

Roy in a hospital gown. Roy in a wheelchair and a vacant look in his eyes. A headstone and a name: Lt Col Maes Hughes. And so many people are telling Roy how sorry they are. How much they’re praying for him, for Hughes, and that Roy was so brave when he tried to protect his brother in arms. _Jesus Christ_.

Ed can remember the counselor telling him the same thing when he was in a wheelchair. It was as worthless as snake oil because he still felt that way.

Further through the posts he saw a picture captioned _Hughes_. He was some guy with glasses, saluting in cockpit of an F22 Raptor. Ed isn’t sure what exactly happened but he knows why Roy didn't post any words. Hughes is dead and Roy blames himself. He’s as sure of this as his own name.

He remembers Roy that might in the Camaro: _I know that feeling_ , he’d told Ed.

Ed falls back into his mattress and stares at the dark ceiling. He remembers sharing that joint with him as he takes a hit. The universe is a giant explosion, and so is everything in it, and anyone who fucks with the fire is going to hurt the ones closest to him unless he does something.

He turns and opens a message box. _hey_ , then hits send. God, why did he do that? Ed snorts. Whatever, he can’t make it any worse.

He gets a response instantly. It’s a phone number, followed by _call me_.

He texts _hey_.

Immediately his phone buzzes. This guy… Ed answers the phone. “I did say call me.” Roy’s voice is deep and raspy. “Hey back." There is a long pause before he says, “You doing okay?”

Ed stares up at the ceiling. “I don’t want Al to join the Air Force.”

Something is rustling in the background. ”Why the change of heart?” His voice is suddenly serious.

Ed groans. The streetlight outside his window is working again, projecting light through the slate of his Venetian blinds, onto the wall, making twenty two lines. Al had counted them the first weekend he stayed over, last fall semester. God, how many more times would Al be able to do that? “I don’t think it changed at all. Originally he was gonna go to school here and live with us. It’s just that — no offense — I don’t want Al to think of himself as some kind of killer. No one deserves that.”

“ _’No one deserves that.’_ Even if they are?”

He studies the laptop image of Lt Colonel Mustang in his dress uniform, sitting on a wheelchair, being awarded the Purple Heart. Ed hated being in a wheelchair. “Sorry.” Ed groans. “Didn’t mean to bother you. I gotta go.“

“I can come pick you up.”

Ed sits up like he’s got spring propulsion. “Be here in ten minutes.”

He can blame the hormones, he can blame the weed, but he has to take a little responsibility for this. He’s foolish, he’s weak, and he’s _stupid_.

Roy is here, top down and lights on, and Ed nearly falls as he runs down the staircase. Roy revs the engine when Ed steps out in the headlights wearing a tight red T-shirt and shorts that scream _twink_. Ed’s never worn the shorts outside before. Never exposed his prosthetics so much before.

Roy watches him get in. “You sure you wanna do this?”

“Yeah.” God, Roy looks so fucking good in a bomber jacket. “Positive.”

“So why did you say no, Friday?” He pulls it off and it’s so fucking unfair. Ed wants to pull up his shirt and lick his pecs so bad.

“Wanted to end on a high note.”

Roy shifts in his seat. “I’m thirty-three. Not a kid. Not saying I want love and marriage but I don’t want to be lonely.” He puts his hand on Ed’s knee. “Last Friday I didn’t feel lonely.”

“You can just say things like that, out loud?” Ed swallows hard in his throat.

“It’s allowed from what I heard.” Roy tilts his head back in his seat. “What do you think? I’m not guaranteeing anything but why not? Maybe we can even say hi to each other before you go to class tomorrow.”

Ed laughs. “Oh, you like to rush things — “ He can’t finish what he's saying because Roy catches his chin and pulls him in for a kiss. “Hi,” Ed whispers when he opens his eyes and sees Roy looking back at him.

“Hi.” Their breath mingles as Roy touches his cheek.

Ed touches Roy’s face. Ed’s lonely, too. And Roy nods as if he heard this and understands what he has to do.

God damn biochemistry — it turns so-called geniuses into idiots in red convertibles, shooting down the road like particles in an explosion. Ed pulls off his seatbelt and climbs on top of Roy once they park under some mesquite trees near the park, blaming biochemistry and himself. He wants to believe this is okay.

He grinds into Roy’s lap and slides his hands across that chest. Roy grabs his ass. “You need something, baby?” He spits in his hand as Ed sits back and pulls down his shorts. “Yeah, baby. You need something, don’t you?” Ed throws his long, loose hair back and lets it blow in the wind as Roy starts jerking him off. “That’s it. God, you are so beautiful. You know that?”

Ed doesn’t know that. Roy tries to tell him when he pulls Ed’s shirt up too, when he leans over and sucks Ed’s nipple into his mouth. And Ed wants to believe it. And he does for a moment as he comes for Roy. Cicadas drown out his sobbing. Roy licks up his tears. And then kisses him, gently.

“You want me to suck you off?” Ed asks.

Roy shakes his head and puts Ed’s hand on his denim clad thigh. “I’m fine for right now. I just want to kiss you a little.”

They’re breathy, soft kisses. They kiss each other as if each is fragile, fragile enough to break if one presses against the other. Roy runs his hands through Ed’s hair and sighs when Ed touches his chest again. Then he stops when Ed’s hand goes lower. He pulls back when Ed lifts up his shirt. He watches as Ed leans down and kisses the scar on his abdomen.

Then he lets out a long, tortured breath.

Ed sits up. “I’m sorry! I was just — “

Roy cups his face and kisses him quiet. This time he isn’t as gentle, but he doesn’t break, and neither does Ed. He takes Ed’s left hand and pushes it against his fly. Ed’s hands shake, his right prosthetic hand can barely grasp the zipper tab but he manages, and Roy groans when Ed touches him.

“Please,” Roy whispers. Ed spits in his hand and reaches back down. _”Please.”_

He listens. He feels. He moves and he watches Roy’s shadowy face stare back at him as he jerks Roy off. He can blame hormones, he can blame weed, but he has to put some of the blame on his stupid self for jerking him off. Ed wants Roy to feel beautiful, too. This kind of beauty is something neither has to believe because they _know_.

Roy buries his face in Ed’s hair. “Don’t be afraid to grab a hold of something precious. Hold on to it right because you never know how long you’ve got.”

Ed thinks about Al. “You’re right.” He’s going to ask Al to come to UT and forget about the Academy.

The next day, when Ed walks by, Ed smiles back. He might say hi next week, maybe.

++

Al is over for the weekend. He, Winry and Ed are drinking Coors in cozies while Al and Winry kick their feet in the kidney shaped apartment complex pool. “UT isn’t a bad school,” Al says. “Study, lab time, family. I could live like this.”

Ed nudges his shoulder. “What do you wanna do?”

Al stares at the water. “Not sure that’s in the cards.” He’s got this sad smile on his face. “You gotta do what you gotta do.”

“And what do you gotta do?” Ed nudges him again.

When his brother looks him in the eye, Ed can see his face reflecting back at him. “You tell me.”

Winry gets up and dives into the pool. They watch her swim underwater until she reaches the far end and starts swimming freestyle. Ed wishes he could swim again. He only dips his flesh foot in the water.

“Well?” This time Al nudges him.

“I know it’s your dream to be an astronaut. But I don’t want you to become a combat pilot. I don’t want you to kill people. I don’t want you to get shot down. I want you to live! I want you to live here with us.”

Al is facing the water but Ed knows he’s not watching Winry. “You’re so stupid ,” Al whispers. Then he takes Ed’s hand. “All I ever wanted was to make you proud, brother.”

Ed can’t look at him either, but he squeezes his hand. “I am. Keep making me proud, here. Please? I know it’s selfish.”

“Okay.” Al squeezes back.

++

Ed doesn’t know if Roy’s going to be around next year, but then again, life doesn’t come with guarantees in an uncaring universe. All he knows is he’s here in Roy’s bed right now, pulling off Roy’s shirt right now, and he’s bound and determined to suck on Roy’s nipples in the imminent future. Ed rubs his thumbs over them.

“Wanna spend the night?” Roy asks.

Ed smiles. “Possibly.” After all, they hit a milestone today. Ed actually said hi to Roy in front of the Cockrell building. “Do you have any weed? I’m out.”

“Oh, well that changes everything. I’m just going to have to get up,” which he does, “and leave you,” he goes into his bathroom, “so I can get my legal marijuana with prescription and all.” He comes back with a bottle, which Ed promptly tries to grab. Roy grabs him, instead. “What’ll you trade me?”

Ed pulls off his shorts. He drops them on the floor and he waits for Roy to come collect payment.

The universe is nothing but a fifteen billion year old explosion. Nothing lasts and everything ends, but that’s not the point. “Hold on to me,” Roy whispers as he climbs between Ed’s legs. “Hold on real tight.” And he does.

From now on Ed always does, for as long as he can.


End file.
